Echoes of the White Narcissus
by Dim Aldebaran
Summary: There is nothing as beautiful as the narcissus... [Opalcentric, dark, nominated for Best Short & Best Angst in the Orion Awards]


E C H O E S

_of the _

W H I T E  
N A R C I S S U S

- Dim Aldebaran -

**:i:**

_I write this to you, dear friend, your _raison d'être:

_I am not your god, for I will not punish you if you question me._

_I am not your mother, for I will not protect you._

_I am not your father, for I will do more than watch._

_Dearest, you know what I am._

I. C O R U N D U M

He never had the intention of being a good role model; but he had never intended on being a good father, either.

Mother told her early that that was the way it'd be: _no one cares when they don't even notice, _she said, combing those spun-shadow strands, _so make them notice, or blind them, if that's how you work, just so long as they know…_

This was all the raw jewel took from Mother-dearest: engraved into her soul as she was cut to brilliance, with those gleaming facets of lipstick and mascara.

And once she shone, Father finally saw: he made ready to sell that gem to the highest bidder, to stud the crown of a bureaucrat.

—but no: the jewel slipped between his fingers, even as he reached to throw it away.

He shouldn't mourn the loss; they always say material things are meaningless.

* * *

_They will touch you, sweet friend, like the most precious of gems! but they will also touch you like meat in the market, for the taking. Do not be concerned, for their little dirty pleasures are a small price for the power it gives you. Do not let them touch the power, for once those brutes do, they will take it as they take you—_

II. N O V A E

He couldn't promise her riches; he couldn't plead power, nor popularity; for they all knew she'd have it all eventually.

Through the hallways she shone, radiating that laughter peculiar to the brightest of stars—

—though the brightest burn the fastest.

When she turned towards him, he was blinded: something in that starry smile.

Canon was found in those nebulous quips and conversations, in that star cluster that revolved around her, making her all the brighter, this brilliant star, as they all gravitated towards the black hole of her soul.

When those careless curls and careful curios became too much for even her with the eternal hunger, they'd all offer her more, desperate to keep the star amongst them.

She didn't belong to this world. They all knew that; even as she slowly tore their souls apart.

* * *

_You know me as well as I know myself; have you not seen me in your dreams? I have a voice but never speak; my eyes are open but I never see; I think, therefore I am. _

_And you, you, O fairest of friends? You have the voice I never spoke; your eyes open and in seeing my face you see it is your own; you know my thoughts, and thus, you think—and thus, O miracle of miracles! you **are**._

_No one else exists, for they see and hear but do not know of us and our thoughts: thus it is, dear friend, we are so sweetly alone…_

III. P A N T H E O N

How Foaly missed the uncaring darkness of the star-womb, the nebula, where none could see him, nor he them. There, he was alone; he was his own god.

But here: her.

_Her—_

**Her**.

She bathed in their worship, this virgin goddess, cleansing herself of divine afterbirth with their praises and rinsing with the favors, the fancies, the flowers. How this goddess sparkled, how she shone in the pale light of the winter crescent moon—

But she didn't need the moonlight; the twilight became her, draping her in the slow sparkle of coal; sunlight as well, clothing her in a raiment of gold.

And in the dark—the dark!—something more caught his eye. In the dark, he could not be blinded by those curves and curls, for he could not even see: only then he saw the mind of this gloried goddess—

The light of praise was always around her—but sometimes, here and there, a moment of darkness: he was not alone for they were two gods in the same void, and he could reach out and touch her—

She'd disappear with the day, and never see him, for no one could see the lightless.

* * *

_We are thieves, thieves and little more._

_Perhaps jewels don't shine as we do, but we must not be picky, for already we pass by cheaper treasures, those with 'potential' that we must carve with our own hands. Take only those ready so we do not dirty ourselves; be they the heart of the earth or the mind of a man._

IV. K L E P T O M A N I A C

Mulch had a mind of iron, perhaps, but a heart of gold—

But he dare not polish himself to a high gloss: it would take part of him with it, to look all bright and brilliant for her.

She hadn't needed the cut of acid to shine so: no polish for this jewel, for she was born with those glittering facets—

He could count them, those façades, count those cut faces and consider their perfection. _Who cut this jewel_, he asked himself, and thought_, **she** did, with that diamond mind of hers, she designed herself—_

And him? Dun and dirt, nothing but damnable discharge—

_What a thief she is_, he'd think_, stealing my heart like this._

—and smile: _we're not so different: kindred kleptomaniacs_—

As he dug the foundations to her crowning achievement, he left a back entrance—one day, perhaps, the thief herself thieved.

* * *

_Consider the nightingale: we hear its voice and follow: but find such a plain, ordinary thing! You will find many like this, with voices sweet like ours; but they are rather quite drab creatures._

V. T A B U L A R A S A

Briar loved the storms. He loved the fever-slow crescendos into full symphony, crashing and then rising again from the ashes of its own silence, again and again and again. He loved the piercing piccolo screams and timpani thunder, the snare-swirl of the rain and wind-whispering flutes. He loved the great billows of blue-black, the curtains of silver rain, the quicksilver veil on his window as he watched the world die and be reborn with the sun.

He loved the storms, long before her.

She was a storm; but also a well of calm, the eye of the hurricane, still and so very silent as the world raged around.

This Caliban found strange solace with her, in the stillness that was yet a storm. He'd speak, sometimes, of _why_; that life was its own reason, and he needed nothing else, now, now that he had a life, now that he had her—

But she'd laugh, like the sudden fury of the cyclone. _Life is its own rationalization_, she'd correct, and turn to posterity and power, princes and pride.

What a storm her stillness was, what a totalitarian tempest—

—and he could not help but be blown away.

* * *

_At times, you may despair—and rightly so, seeing other bright-shiners like you and I,… but then, sweet sister, you must remember that they are nothing more than the nightingale, even though they do not sing. The world they see is flatland, and, I must assure you, is quite dull compared to that which you and I see._

VI. D O M I N E D E U S

The windows, really, were too much for Artemis; someone might come in.

So he kept the windows shut; but then, there were still the windows, waiting to be broken.

He moved his living suite to the basement and played his grand piano, finding comfort in the fact no one would find him there—

—but one day, a stray guest had followed the music and found him. He had been shot, of course, cleanly in the chest. Butler took care of it for him. Good man, Butler.

So he stopped playing the piano and turned to the easel. Each work was of the articulate beauty found only in the purest madness, fermented by obsession and distilled with silence. He surrounded himself with these images, hundreds of them, lining his universe with them until they were all that ever was—

—except, one day, he saw the door. Someone could come through that door, that certain someone—

The door had to go, of course. A little slit was installed for food and such—and he was quite happy, this little prince, even if he was all grown up by now.

But someone might come through that slit—but Butler couldn't stand for the slit to go. Evidently, he needed _food_.

He watches the slit now, day after day, staring as it, now, becomes his world. There is no time, for in his mind she already slips in and finishes the job of stealing his heart—

—may she have luck in putting the broken pieces together.

* * *

_Do not worry about me; I will be as the queen bee, my every material need attended to by those hapless fools. Their words are sweet as honey to me, and as much substance as I could ever desire._

_And my mental needs?—I can amuse myself, let me assure you. These fools can't even comprehend the games I play…_

VII. S AV A N T P R I N C I P I A

Argon would call her a liar when she told the truth: it was the only way to make her react, the only way to see if the creature before him was more than just that—

That was before she took the world and lost it again; that was before she became comatose, fair Daphne unmoved by Apollo's embraces.

He'd cite his reasons one by one, why was she this way and that, why, _why_ such a queen of all became the queen of none: genius and beauty were never meant to inhabit the same body.

He spent months pouring over the interviews with friends and lovers, enemies and allies, even mere acquaintances, listening to how one by one she drove them mad with that deadly cocaine in those black eyes and black hair and black heart—

He hadn't thought it a problem until he, too, was interviewed.

* * *

_Here, sweet, sweet sister, I must conclude—ah, alas! I love you so, but we must part for a time… You will be back soon, in all likelihood, bursting with laughter on how ridiculously easy it all was, on how much sillier the world grows daily._

_Now, my fairest, adieu, adieu! for a brave new world awaits you_

VIII. F L E U R – D E – L I S

There was no shape more perfect than a circle, so simple yet so elegant, such a singular expression of the savant.

And with two in a loop, the double-eight of infinity? It was a continuation as it changed relative to itself as a circle never could, around and around in delicately mad loops.

And this, was this not such a continuation? Around and around and _around_, spinning and swirling yet still yearning for completion, repetitious but still so rapturous?

They no longer remembered which loop came first—but such questions were so tiresome, chicken or the egg. Did the mind create the body, set it out to walk across the lonesome prairie-planes of existence guided by the mind and the mind alone—or did the body, yearning for something more, create its other half so it could be complete, finally, whole and one.

Who deluded who now, did they delude each-other, or did they delude themselves—the mind and the marionette, the puppeteer and peerless body? They both found each-other so madly amusing, in the end.

**:i:**

Heya... this is one of the fics that I have Feared for a long time. The White Lily did a wonderful jobbetaing this, as always.

I know thisfic is rather... strange. I still don't like it. And the formatting didn't always work right.CC would be wonderful.


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